Title: Daughter of Black Lake Author: Cathy Marie Buchanan
Published: October 6, 2020
Genre(s): Historical Fiction
Page Count: 320
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:It's the season of Fallow, in the era of iron. In a northern misty bog surrounded by woodlands and wheat fields, a settlement lies far beyond the reach of the Romans invading hundreds of miles to the southeast. Here, life is simple--or so it seems to the tightly knit community. Sow. Reap. Honor Mother Earth, who will provide at harvest time. A girl named Devout comes of age, sweetly flirting with the young man she's tilled alongside all her life, and envisions a future of love and abundance. Seventeen years later, though, the settlement is a changed place. Famine has brought struggle, and outsiders, with their foreign ways and military might, have arrived at the doorstep. For Devout's young daughter, life is more troubled than her mother ever anticipated. But this girl has an extraordinary gift. As worlds collide and peril threatens, it will be up to her to save her family and community.
Iron Age Britain, 60 CE. Nero is emperor in Rome, and in Britain, the famous chieftain Boudicca is planning her uprising, while the druids cling fruitlessly to their former powers and the common bog dwellers in Cheshire struggle to maintain a sense of normalcy amidst a doomed civil war.
Daughter of Black Lake is, I suppose, an extensive backstory into how the Lindow Man—a young, healthy man, who was seemingly the victim of a ritualized killing‚came to be in a peat bog. It’s also a book about how the Roman conquest of Britain irreparably shifted daily living for the native Celts. And it’s also about how even the most well-intentioned faith can be manipulated to serve as a tool for oppression.
For myself, I liked the book. Although the book is set against a tumultuous period of history, the story is a “family drama.” Seventeen years ago, a young woman, Devout, was caught in the middle of a difficult love triangle, and now her choices are haunting not only her, but also her husband and young teenage daughter. The author gives both mother and daughter a voice in this novel, as we slowly see the mother’s secrets revealed, and then see how that secret affects the entire family in the “present day.” It’s a good story, particularly for readers who enjoy two female narrator / Big Reveal type plotlines that explore the unexpected consequences of difficult choices made decades ago. (It’s not my favorite mode of storytelling, but I acknowledge that these plots form a large chunk of historical fiction.)
Of course, to say “this is just a story about family tiffs and squabbles” is ridiculous. The whys and hows of young Devout’s choices play out in a way that’s entirely dependent upon historical context. Cathy Marie Buchanan has evidently done a great deal of research into druidry, the Roman conquest, and the lives of the bog dwellers themselves. There are a lot of readers who like historical fiction because it tells a good story and teaches something new alongside. This is certainly one of those books. Although I’ve heard of the Lindow Man and Boudicca, I never once thought about their stories.
The only major complaint I have with Daughter of Black Lake comes down to a technical issue. Buchanan likes to use “flashbacks” to convey important information. Instead of showing a scene in the moment as it occurs, she instead opens her chapter a few hours later, while the narrator is doing some mundane task, and then reveals a conversation/action via “memory.” Such as, “While I was preparing the porridge, my mind went back to the conversation between Fox and my father in the forge. Fox was angry, and told my father that…” etc., etc. (Disclaimer: not a direct quote.) Not only is this the least effective way to tell an emotionally impactful story, it’s also confusing and clunky. Oftentimes, a single “scene” would have several of these flashbacks within it, so it was difficult to keep myself oriented as to time and chronology within the narrative. I figured it out in the end, but I do wish I hadn’t had to work so hard to understand what is, ultimately, a pretty straightforward story.
In short, Daughter of Black Lake is an interesting, unique historical novel that explores a period in history that’s not often written of. I loved the way Buchanan was able to create a sense of place and culture through her prose, and the character arc of the narrators was well-written. I enjoyed this, but had some qualms with the author’s narrative choices. Ultimately, however, I think it’s a good book.
